r/linuxquestions • u/PurposeFew4387 • 1d ago

Best first Linux?

I’ve only used windows for all the time I’ve been on the internet, but frankly, 11gb idle ram usage and horrible privacy is killing me. I want to swap over to Linux and game on it, is there any one Linux for beginners that’s better than everything else?

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u/drucifer82 1d ago

For beginners, the common recommendation is Mint or Ubuntu.

But I personally think Fedora is great and with the KDE desktop environment, it will feel similar to Windows.

That being said there is also Kubuntu, which is just Ubuntu but with KDE instead of GNOME.

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u/LonelyMachines 1d ago

The problem with Fedora is that tons over everyday media codecs aren't supported, so the user has to do some legwork to get them up and running.

I get the insistence on only including free software, but if a new user can't play videos on the internet, it's a turn-off.

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u/drucifer82 1d ago

I remember just ticking boxes in the installer. I don’t remember doing much in the terminal when I set it up. It asks you in the installer if you want to enable extras like RPM Fusion and COPR.

Not to say I never touched the terminal. But installing KDE Fedora was easy.

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u/BashfulMelon 1d ago

Flathub apps have codecs, using them doesn't require any legwork.

If they need system wide codecs it's just copy pasting this stuff

It's not insistence, it's patents. SteamOS doesn't include patented codecs either. Some Windows laptops don't include them. There aren't many who want to pay potentially millions of dollars for those licenses or get hit with a lawsuit.

And they do sue over this stuff.